To Bring Him Joy

  “ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:20-21, 24-25 ESV) So the other morning when I was reading the story of the birth of Jesus, aka the Christmas story, and the warning in the dream to the wise men stood out to me, I decided I would go back and see just how many times this happened in this story. It happened quite often to Joseph. This passage caught my attention and caused me to not only thank God for Joseph but for my husband, who is much like Joseph. Maybe you have a Joseph that you need to give much ...

  "And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way." Matthew 2:12 ESV As I told you in my previous post, I've been trying to read the story of the birth of Jesus around Christmas time for over thirty years now, asking God to show me something new.  I'm hoping to share some of those things with you over the next few weeks.  I'm so excited as I have been reading and remembering different things that the Holy Spirit has spoken to me about through His word and this particular story over the years.  I want to say that just because I call it a story does not mean that it didn't happen. It is not a fairy tale. It is a biography, the story of the living God that He has chosen to reveal to us in written form. Wow, what a blessing that He would want to share His story with us and even more that He would want to share Himself with us. Of course, this is why He wrote this history. The whole Bible has been written...

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ” Philippians 2:5-8 ESV   Every year I struggle with just exactly how to celebrate Christmas. In fact, I probably struggle with how to celebrate every holiday, even birthdays! My husband says that holidays will never be the way that I want them until I'm in heaven! I so badly want them all to be about Jesus and I struggle with how to create that atmosphere for each member of my family. I remember when I was a freshman in college deciding that I kind of hated Christmas and holidays because I had the misconception that they were supposed to be about family and my family was broken with no hope of being whole. D...

     " Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."   Colossians 2:6-7 ESV How often do we "abound in thanksgiving"?  It actually means: to overflow, to excel still more, to increase in excellence. I don't think that I can claim to excel in thanksgiving much less excel still more or increase in excellence. I am way behind when it comes to thanksgiving. It should be my daily attitude and practice but to often it is not. This is telling of a couple of major things: that I don't really know God, who He is and what He has done and I don't know myself, how sinful I am and what great need I have. Or I have lost focus, forgotten these most important things, it is the Gospel, after all. Throughout the Old Testament this phrase is repeated in some form over and over again: “Oh give thanks to the LORD for He is good, H...

"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.   He was like one people turned away from; He was despised, and we didn't value Him. Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains; but we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced because of our transgressions,  crushed because of our iniquities;  punishment for our peace was on Him and we are healed by His wounds. We all went astray like sheep we all have turned to our own way: and the LORD has punished Him for the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:3-6 HCSB                                                 So many times I take for granted all that Christ suffered for me, not that I totally...

I am not a huge sci-fi fan in general but I have gotten into some because of watching a few shows with my teenage sons and my 20 something daughters  (sometimes dad gets in on the watching action as well). We pick a show and start at the beginning and watch through as many seasons as are available.  The sci-fi started with Stargate Atlantis but now we are on Dr Who. Many times over the years after we have watched a movie or TV show I have asked my kids who was most like Jesus in that show and then we have a good discussion about it.  Sadly, there are more and more shows that there is no one to be found who is like Jesus at all. But what is amusing to me is when a show that is fairly anti-God, pro-super science accidentally gives a fairly good picture of the gospel! It is funny that things that we accept in our heroes we don't like, even hate about God.   This idea hit me when my youngest son was replaying his favorite narrative from one of the  recent shows ...

 This is something that I just sat down and wrote shortly after my mother in law died.  I felt like God wanted me to write and so I did.  It is just me fairly raw, not at all polished, sharing with God. I hope it helps someone out there.   I am just not sure where to start but I know that I need to be writing so here goes. I have been wondering about my mother in laws death and just why she died in the way the she did. It was so weird. She fought to the end. Screaming and kicking and biting, mocking and glaring, just mean and weird. I don't know if it was the melanoma reaching her brain, the Alzheimers, or the medications that we were giving her to try to relieve the pain and delirium she was having. It was awful. If I hadn't really believed that she was a christian, there are times that I almost thought that she was possessed! Father, this seems useless, just writing for the sake of writing. Lord, only You truly know why she died in the way that she did...

What in the world does this mean? How do you do this? This is a phrase out of Romans 4 speaking of Abraham.  In the Old Testament we read that God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was not far behind him. Abraham and Sarah had long given up on having children, Sarah even laughed at the idea. Abraham said that their bodies were as good as dead.  I think this is what it means when it says "in hope he believed against hope".  All the odds were against them, if you looked at them and their circumstances there really was not any hope for them to have a child.  So why did Abraham have hope why did he "believe against hope".  For that you have to look at the surrounding verses in Romans 4.       "As it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"--in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not ex...

"So when they had come together, they asked Him, "Lord, at this time are You restoring the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:6-8 ESV When I was reading this earlier this month one of my first reactions to this verse was to feel sorry for Jesus that after all He had been through and taught them, the disciples were still not getting it.  Then I thought, Jesus, why didn't You just tell them no? Why didn't He take the time to explain to them again that His was not an earthly kingdom? Not now? It was not the time for explaining, He ascended in a cloud immediately after this statement. He had already explained numerous times. In fact if you read the previous verses, Luke tells us that Jesus appe...

My mother in law died the day before Easter. She literally fought to the death (not in a good way).  It was heart wrenching to watch and still  hurts to think about it but God taught me some really good things as we walked this path with her and her husband. The following is one of the lessons that I learned and wrote during some of the early stages of us really being involved in their care. I have been learning from the real life pictures that God is giving me in dealing with my mother-in-law and her husband. She has a metastatic malignant melanoma that is at least at a stage 3 of 4, it is an avocado sized lump under her left arm. She sometimes acts as if she doesn't even remember that it is there. We have all agreed that she could not handle any kind of treatment and we don't really know how long God will give her. She probably weighs under 100 by now but insists that she eats when she is hungry. She has Alzheimers at least stage 5 of 7 and she has high blood pressure a...

             " Lord , how long will You forget me? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?    How long will I store up anxious concerns  within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me?    Consider me and answer, Lord my God. Restore brightness to my eyes;  otherwise, I will sleep in death. My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,” and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.    But I have trusted in Your faithful love;  my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance.    I will sing to the Lord because He has treated me generously. " Psalm 13 HCSB How I identify with this Psalm of David.  So very often I feel as though God is far off or that I am a continual failure.  I have struggled with this downward spiral thing a great deal in my life.  I feel as though Satan has my number on speed dial.  He rea...

 (This is actually something I wrote quite a while ago but felt that I should share it with you.  I hope it is encouraging to you. God is so very faithful.) “And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 One of the areas that I am extremely weak in is time. I just don’t do time! I am not usually aware of it passing by and am quite shocked sometimes when I find out how much of it has passed by! So it is quite funny of God to use me to do something in His perfect timing. This whole story is about weakness and strength, who has it and who doesn’t and what God really considers to be strength. In April or May of 2005 I happened...

 “ Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I Am gentle and humble in heart, and 'you will find rest for your souls.' For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 Here is another verse that we tend to interpret and apply to our physical, earthly situations when Jesus was more than likely speaking in spiritual terms. What makes you more weary than carrying around guilt and habitual sin? Is not salvation the key to rest? Jesus yoke was the cross. When we take on His yoke, we share in His righteousness, we enter His rest! He paid the the price, took the weight of the cross, the debt and guilt of sin! I have always had trouble with understanding how a yoke could be easy and a burden be light. I think I couldn't get past the physical picture of it all. Easy can also be translated comfortable or pleasant! Does this mean our earthly life will be problem free, without pain o...

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." James 1:23-25 ESV " So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." James 4:17 ESV I must confess that this is me way too often. I have been the beneficiary of hearing a lot. I have sat under gifted preachers and teachers most of my life. I have heard God's direction and followed and I have heard God's direction and skirted around it, done things to dull it, I have said with Moses, "but God I can't". Therefore, these verses hit me like a shot in the heart. I have known the ri...